How to make snail mail work, part 1

by | Oct 24, 2014 | Marketing that works

If you are using snail mail (which I thoroughly recommend) to generate business you’ve got to make sure the envelope gets opened. That means you need to understand about the A and B piles.

What are the A and B piles? Well the MD’s personal assistant or somebody standing at the letter box at home always takes the pile of mail they’ve got and sorts it into 2 piles. They put some in the A pile, that’s what they want to read, and the rest in the B pile, that’s what they don’t want to read.

Now what goes in that B pile? Well the first thing is bills, then other things like boring letters from government departments, letters from accountants and lawyers, circulars, and stuff that looks like junk mail.

What do they put in the A pile? The first thing is cheques (so if you can make the envelope look like it contains a cheque it is bound to get opened). After cheques the most important thing that goes into the A pile is personal mail.

People love getting personal mail so we should make our letters look like they are personal and you can do that if the envelope…

  • is hand addressed, preferably in beautiful easy-to-read beautiful writing,
  • is a plain envelope, not even a logo, maybe just a return address street address,
  • has a genuine postage stamp on it,
  • has a bulge in it (unless it ticks or exudes white powder),
  • was posted from somewhere they don’t expect or overseas

Now I mentioned having a bulge in the envelope. Here are some examples.

Tape $1 coin to the top of the letter. The headline could be:

Use this bright shiny dollar for the extra petrol you’ll need to drive the extra distance to our store to save big money!

Or you could attach a bank note with a headline:

Now you’ve opened this letter you’re already making money

Or

This is a deposit on 20 minutes of your time. If you think I’ve wasted it after we talk I’ll give you the balance

Now you are going to say to me “Hey, I can’t afford to mail out some money, I am going to be sending out hundreds of these letters.” But you see that’s where you test and measure. You may find by introducing these ideas you get a better response to your mailing, so it means you mail less letters to get the same response or for the same number of letters you get a far better response.

 
Winstons_Wise Words_CoverThe “how’s things?” call is one of those techniques every businessperson should use. It works beautifully for anybody who is serious about making their business successful. In fact, if you’re not using it you should be. Want to learn more? Buy Winston’s downloadable discussion on the “How’s Things?” call here. “Part of the Winno’s Wise Words series”.